Building Blocks of Digital Transformation

In this post, my colleague at Canon Business Process Services (Canon), Serdar Ercetin, BPO Advisor with a special focus on banking and financial services (BFS), shares his thoughts on how the increasing threat of digital disruption is forcing many large businesses across all industries to digitally reinvent themselves. Serdar points out that like any large undertaking, moving towards a fully digital organization without internal boundaries and silos requires a carefully crafted business plan with clearly defined and executable components. Such a plan, Serdar suggests, should include the following:

Top-down execution of a clear strategy

Digital transformation means “change” and any change in an organization creates uncertainty and cultural resistance. In order to effectively manage these challenges, executive management needs to define a clear strategy that explains the tangible benefits of digitizing operations to the all levels. By digitizing and improving a simple business operation that touches many parts of the organization, you can illustrate the benefits without risking disruption of critical day-to-day operations. Quick wins like this may help counter resistance to change, especially in the early stages of the transformation journey. Such wins also help with gaining stakeholder buy-in early on and get people talking about the benefits of digitization.

Creation of a Center of Excellence

Once you prove the concept by automating a simple business process, now it is time to replicate the success across other processes. The fastest and most effective way of accomplishing this is to create a Center of Excellence supported by business leaders and key members of the IT department. The team should be composed of individuals who can map out the details of your customer journey and opportunities to manage processes differently and more efficiently. By doing so, the team will define the new digitally-driven enterprise architecture and align the road map to your strategic drivers at a corporate level. Getting business and IT leaders to collaborate on the same objective will help define new digital best practices and drive continuous business process improvement.

Deployment of agile tools and methodologies

Delivering a real customer-centric, enterprise-wide digital transformation requires using agile delivery methodologies and tools. Thinking big, starting small and scaling fast is possible through an agile approach that supports rapid and iterative prototyping and testing. The right technology platform will enable both a unified way of working for all parties involved and reuse of approved components and assets. Agile methods are most effective when they are executed with discipline and embedded with rigorous procedures for rapid delivery. Leveraging dynamic team leaders who can communicate the overall message while executing lower level project tasks is another key component for success.

In conclusion, businesses that embrace the true digital transformation journey need to build the initiative into their overall company strategy, which is the ideal way to create a true digital culture that can serve your “digital first” clients. Choosing the right tools and methodologies along with establishing the right mix of your teams will definitely help you get to the finish line faster.

Feel free to visit the Business Process Outsourcing page of our website for additional insights including white papers, research reports, case histories and more.